Sunday
by Ninjana
Summary: character study for Sanya, how he took up the coin and left it behind


spoilers for Small Favours  
contains canonical racial issues which I hope have been dealt with respectfully.  
also references, in passing, adult situations, but nothing too graphic.

It has been the school of hard knocks from day one.

Not only is he a highly visible outcast, a literal black sheep in a flock of white ones, but he doesn't even have the potential to blend into the background. White on white, and then there's him.

He's home life is hard. Sanya thinks his parents got together for the sheer novelty of finding someone else with dark skin in this great white country. They really don't have much else in common and the only thing breaking up the tense silences are the screaming matches.

His mother finds the Church. His father finds the bottle.

When he's young she takes him with her, and he learns the stories of saints and martyrs and sinners and devils.

He doesn't find much peace when the rest of the congregation spends the sermon staring at them.

When he's older he follows his dad to the bar. The stares are easier to ignore when he's drinking, but watching the other, older men waste themselves there isn't an appealing future.

He remembers when he caused his first car accident. Luckily no one was hurt. But for the longest time Sanya feels shame over the colour of his skin.

Sanya remembers going to Church and feeling awkward. There was no solace in the house of the Lord for him.

Sanya remembers going to the bar and feeling hopeless. There was no peace at the bottom of a bottle.

Sanya is adrift, angry and shamed and alone.

He meets Her.

She is always capitalized, although he rarely says Her name, nowadays.

She teaches him and he is an apt and eager student.

Rosanna barely has to conceal her intent, her true self. Her demonic nature.

She could have met him that first time in her horned and cloven hoofed form and he would have accepted her, for the gift she gave him when she didn't stare at his skin, or asking stupid questions, or make him feel like a freak.

She accepts him and he is as happy as he can ever remember being.

They spend nights entwined in each other, ecstasy and acceptance and perfection wiled away in front of fires, in hotels, and under the moon in ancient forests. Rosanna has no shortage of money, nor pesky inhibitions.

A woman like her wants him and it inflames the ego, the senses. He'd follow her into hell, barefoot, to keep his angel.

She teaches him more than just love and acceptance though.

He learns about the burn of alcohol, the sting of the needle, the height of pleasure with multiple partners. Rosanna has no problem sharing.

He learns taking up the coin was probably a mistake.

Sanya wishes that his breaking point, his wake up call had been something more noble. An innocent he couldn't hurt, or a line he wouldn't cross.

It's a broken heart and a wounded ego.

Rosanna's boss comes over to the apartment that they're staying at and asks him to leave. She barely looks in his direction before she and Rosanna begin their conversation. He waits in the next room and eavesdrops. Ignoring personal privacy is such a small thing compared to the other things he's done.

There's one last lesson for Rosanna to teach Sanya, and it is this; he is an assignment, a thing so unimportant that they can't even be bothered to make sure he really left. He is beneath their notice.

He is nothing but a monster.

It's the hardest lesson.

He doesn't remember leaving the apartment, although he must have. He doesn't remember walking to the river. He is just there, coin in hand, and for the first time it is not a blessing. It disappears into the black water.

For the first time since he met Her he is alone.

He keeps walking.

Sanya can't imagine ever finding another teacher, another person to teach him the ways of the world, but he does know he needs to forget the things his masters taught him, Rosanna and Magog both.

"Excuse me" a tiny man, Asian by the looks of him, says, as he accidentally bumps into Sanya. Sanya looks up and everything changes.

_My last waking thought a heresy,_  
_ghastly in its implications:_  
_a loophole not closed a singularity to bedevil perfection_

-Sunday, by Cliff Burns


End file.
